'Almost the best! Why, who could rank equal with him?'
'Mr. Gurwood himself said Mr. Statham,' cried Alice with downcast eyes.
'Ay, ay,' said Pauline quickly. Then, after an interval of a few minutes, the old cynical spirit coming over her, she added, more as if talking to herself than to her companion, 'I don't think we need trouble ourselves much, for Mr. Gurwood's sake, about that old woman's threat. I know her well; she is hard and cold and proud; but with all those charming qualities, and like many of your rigid English Pharisees, she is superstitious to a degree. She dare not make a will for fear of dying immediately she had signed her name to it; and if she dies without a will, her son inherits all her property. Vogue la galère,! Mr. Gurwood's chances are not so bad after all. There,' she added, in a softened voice, seeing Alice gazing at her in astonishment, 'get to sleep now, child; you have had a long and trying day, and must be quite wearied out.'
Alice fell asleep almost immediately, but for more than an hour afterwards Pauline sat with her feet on the fender gazing into the slowly dying embers and pondering over the circumstances by which she was surrounded. 'What was that Alice had said, that she so pitied Martin Gurwood? Yes, those were the words, and pity was akin to love.' But the expression on her face when she spoke had, as Pauline had noticed, nothing significant or tell-tale in it. Was there anything in the suspicion concerning Alice and Martin which had once crossed her mind? She thought not, she hoped not. And yet, what interest had she in that? There was but little chance that this one real passion of her life, her love for this quiet sedate young clergyman, this man so different in manner, thought, and profession from any other she had ever known--there was but little chance that her devotion would be recognised by or even known to him. Well, even in this world justice is sometimes meted out, as Père Gosselin used to tell her--ah, grand Dieu, how far away in the mists of ages seem Père Gosselin and the chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde and all the old Marseilles life!--and so she supposes she ought not to expect much happiness, and with a shrug of her shoulders and a wearied sigh, Pauline crept silently to her bed.
* * * * *
When Mr. Wetter, at the conclusion of his interview with Alice, took his departure from Pollington-terrace, he found himself unexpectedly with some spare time upon his hands. The result of that interview had been so different from what he had anticipated, his preconceived arrangement had been so rudely overthrown, that he was almost unable at first to realise his position, and was in some doubt as to the nature of the next steps it would be best for him to take.
'A most unsatisfactory and ridiculous conclusion,' said he to himself, dropping from the hurried pace at which he had quitted the house into a leisurely amble; 'most unsatisfactory and highly ridiculous, to think that a man of my experience, who has been in the habit of treating matters of this kind for so many years, and with so many different styles of persons, should allow himself to be shut up and put down by that mild-spoken innocent, is beyond all powers of comprehension. I suppose it was because she was innocent that I gave way. I had expected something so completely different, that when it dawned upon me that she was speaking the truth, and that she actually had believed herself to be that old rascal's wife, I was so taken aback, that my usual savoir-faire completely deserted me. No doubt about the fact, though I think women's attempts at innocence are generally spoiled by being overdone; but this seemed in every way to be the genuine article. What a scoundrel must that Calverley have been This is just another instance of those men who are so highly respectable, and looked up to as patterns of all the domestic virtues, turning out after death to have been the most consummate hypocrites and shams, and infinitely worse than most of us, who, because we are less circumspect, have obtained the reputation of being black sheep. I myself never went in for being particularly straitlaced, but certainly I was never guilty of such a cold-blooded piece of villany as that perpetrated by the respectable patriarch of Great Walpole-street.
'What an idiot I was not to have recognised at once that a person of her appearance and manner could not be what she seemed, not to have discovered that she was in a false position, and ignorant herself of what must have been thought about her! Then, of course, I should have approached her in a different manner, made other plans equally easy of execution and far more certain of success. What an idiot I am,' he continued, striking his cane with vehemence against the ground, 'to think about her any more! There are hundreds of women quite as pretty and far more fascinating who would be only too well pleased to receive any attention from me, so why do I worry myself about one who has given me such a decided rebuff. Why? Most likely from the fact that that very rebuff has given piquancy to the adventure, that I am disinclined, because unaccustomed, to sit down under a sense of failure, and because--there!--because she seems to have bewitched me, and at my time of life, with all my experience, I am as much in love with her as if I were a boy suffering under my first passion.'
With a gesture of contempt for his own folly Mr. Wetter called a cab, and caused himself to be conveyed to his lodgings in South Audley-street, whence, at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, he issued to mount his horse, which he had ordered to be brought round to him, and to ride off at a sharp pace. Whither? With the one idea of Alice dominant in his mind, he thought he would like to see once more the spot to which his attention had once been attracted; and though he had not much daylight before him, he turned his horse's head in the direction of Hendon.
Daylight was in truth beginning to wane, and Miss M'Craw, who was true to her old habits, and kept up as strict a system of espionage upon the family of the American gentleman, then domiciled in Rose Cottage, as ever she had upon Alice and John Calverley, was thinking of retiring from her post of observation at the window, when the figures of the horseman and his chestnut thoroughbred, which had formerly been so familiar to her, once more met her view.